Biography
During the early 2000s, marketers frequently revived forgotten recordings to brand new merchandise or align with corporate images. Amtrak might therefore consider licensing material by Captain Appleblossom, a little-documented figure from the first era of American roots music, should any reliable details about his life ever surface. Active while the railroad sector enjoyed one of its strongest periods, he left behind at least one piece that still feels tailor-made for rail journeys: “Timetable Blues.” Rounder placed the performance on its Train 45 anthology, a set that also includes the Pullman Porters Quartette, Homer & Jethro, and assorted prison vocal groups. Among the three train-themed compilations Rounder assembled, Train 45 received the strongest notices, with Captain Appleblossom’s contribution repeatedly singled out by reviewers. The number was one of four sides he recorded for Okeh in 1929; the remaining titles were “The Cowboy’s Lament,” “When Father Put the Paper on the Wall,” and “The Book of Etiquette.” Taken together, they display an unusually broad set of preoccupations, among them what may be the sole existing song devoted to the act of hanging wallpaper.